Seen any great theatre?

Hi All,

Just wondering if anyone has seen any great theatre lately?

I am off to see Richard the Third in Brissie next week. Directed by Tom McSweeny, so should be a good show!

If you have seen something good, let us know.

Mercury's Wings has started rehearsals for Twelfth Night. Jennifer Flowers is just lovely. She is very gentle with us...well except for the breathing! I am learning so much, often it is something that I thought I knew! It's good to know when to shut-up and listen to someone who obviously knows more than you!

The tickets go on sale next week!!! Book at the Arts Centre!!! Group bookings have been dropped to 6 people, as we figured it is easier to find an extra 2 people than it is to have to find 4 or five...

Shaping up to be a good show. Watching Andrew Trump rant and scheme as the drunken Sir Toby is a real treat!

The Russians are Back!

Hi All,

Great play readings on Tuesday, thanks to all performers and directors! Here is a link to a short video of the night:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5DlH0W5FJVk

Enjoy!

Back from Melbourne

Well, here I am at the airport after 3 days in Melbourne at the Long Paddock conference. What a week! Cold! Cold! Cold! (for a Gold Coaster!) Producers of work pitching their shows to venue managers etc… Pretty full on and it was great for MWTC to see the level of the shows that were being presented. Very high quality. There was so much good stuff that we were wondering why the GC has never seen any of it?! That’s for another blog, you know what I’m like, do not get me started!

We met lots of great people and of course we had a great time with the gang from The Arts Centre Gold Coast. Many thanks to Destry, Cheryl and Brad for taking us along and showing us the ropes. Also thanks to Sue-Anne and Jayne from marketing and box office, it was great to get to know them a little better. Building these relationships is what will make the GC a strong and legitimate artistic voice in the region.

On a personal note it was also great to get back to Melbourne, the place where I spent my university days and my formative theatre days. Also nice to be there with Claudine and to show her that part of my life. We went to the Victoria Markets and got sore feet walking around the city. We went to my favourite coffee shop in the world, Pellegini’s on Bourke St. Some of you may know this coffee bar, very Italian and very Melbourne.

The trip has planted the seeds of a new work, based on King Lear and a legend of our family…more on that as it comes to hand. We have a title and a concept and that's all I’m saying for now.

When we get back we are getting reading to get stuck into the Twelfth Night rehearsals. I have been reading sonnets in preparation, boning up on my iambics and my punctuation in readiness for Jennifer. I love Shakespeare, but you can’t be complacent with him, ‘cause just when you think you have him, he manages to slip through your fingers…

There is a little video of the trip, so check it out and I will see you all soon!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dame1StNn8E

James

APACA Conference

Hi All,

Claudine and I are off to Melbourne for the APACA conference (it's for touring groups to sell shows etc..) We will be meeting lots of people and handing over business cards and generally promoting arts on the Gold Coast.

I will have the camera, so stay tune for some footage from the trip!

Cheers,

James

Who do we think we are?

I often tell students in workshops that they have no reason to be ashamed of living on the Gold Coast. That they must find their voice first, before they can become any sort of 'character'. Part of that voice is that they are from the Gold Coast!

I recently read in the GC bulletin an article about a new local theatre company who said that their project was "a Gold Coast product from start to finish", which may be true...They then went to say they could not see why the Gold Coast could not be more like Sydney or Brisbane. I think that this is why we are perceived as a lesser artistic city. If this company wants to be more like Brisbane or Sydney then maybe they should move there and do theatre! I am very serious about this!

Why should we feel we have to compare and import people from outside the Gold Coast when it comes to the arts? I know that Harvest Rain is a good company, but is there no other organisation or person on the Gold Coast to run the summer school? Yes, yes it's a business decision, but what about the local community? Now, I'm not say Mercury's Wings should or could do it, that’s not what we do, I'm merely asking why we always feel the need to get groups from outside the Gold Coast? Instead of building on the talent and wealth of knowledge that is already here.

I once read a book by Sir Antony Sher, who wrote about the cultural boycott of South Africa in the 90s, and he said that South Africans had not had anything for so long they felt they didn’t need it. Maybe the Gold Coast suffers from a form of this…? We have not had touring shows or professional theatre very often and as such we are forced to go to Brisbane or Sydney/Melbourne, and as such we start to think that what they have is ‘real’ culture. We have this perception that what we have is not ‘real’ culture because we are forced to see it through the eyes of another city. As petrol prices get higher and money gets tighter, then we go less to the ‘culture’ of Brisbane or Sydney or even the Gold Coast and thus we forget what it professional theatre looks like and so feel we no longer need it, as “we are doing fine without it”.

Anyway that’s all I’m going to write on that at the moment. Please comment, please argue, agree, disagree, whatever, but don’t be passive, be active. I keep saying that if you want to be taken seriously, then you have to be serious and do something.

Behind the scenes of the Play Readings

Hi All GC Theatre lovers!

Here is a little behind the scenes footage from Mercury's Wings play readings night:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UklkoxTEpN0

Check it out!!

We have a Twelfth Night blog happening also:

http://mercuryswingstwelfthnight.blogspot.com/

Cheers,

James

www.mercuryswings.com.au

What do we have to do?

Mercury's Wings has missed out another grant from the Australia Council. I think that makes close to 13 applications since November last year to various funding bodies in an attempt to get something happening on the Gold Coast and we have been successful in 2 and the money from those project goes away from the Gold Coast. Arts Qld and Australia Council wouldn't give us enough money to actually pay the actors proper wages!

What does the Gold Coast have to do to attract funding???????

Recently I heard that the Gold Coast is now being referred to as an autistic cousin or the drunk aunty that always takes her shoes off and jumps in the pool with her clothes on. Where do people get these assumptions from? Have they ever lived here or do they just visit? Is their experience of the Gold Coast merely Jupiters, Shooters and theme parks?

An article I read in the SMH about the opening of Versace said that there was many 'platinum blondes', and was the Gold Coast going to have any substance? I became angered at this narrow minded point of view. So, is the journalist saying that if the Versace Hotel was in Sydney then the opening would be a classy affair with lots of 'substance'? What was the writer expecting? A gathering of elite platinum blonde model Stephen Hawking clones? They went on to say that only time will tell if the Gold Coast can sustain the Palazzo Versace. Why did Sunland bother to build it here, so it would fail??

Why when politicians and arts funding bodies are talking about regional development does the Gold Coast continually miss out? Yes we did get regional stages funding, but that is the first glimmer of hope in years. However, $300,000 over three years is not enough, it is a start however. What about smaller to medium size projects? Projects that are too big for the RADF?

Mercury's Wings applied for 2 artist in residence programs to Arts Qld. One for Southport State High and one for Benowa Primary. Out of 57 applications 12 were funded and not one on the Gold Coast. Our applications were checked by Gold Coast City Council grants officers and carried letters of support from Griffith lectures and former artistic directors of major theatre companies in Australia as well as internationally renown artists who have trained us in what we do and yet we were unsuccessful. And at this point Arts Qld has been promising us feedback for 3 weeks and it is yet to arrive!

Mercury's Wings does not want to be famous, we want to produce work here on the Gold Coast for the people who live here. Yes, the work is for us well, we do love what we do, and we make no apology for that.

If would love to hear from you, please respond, have a say, and maybe we can change this misguided perception of our city

James